Can third-party app developers really read your Gmail emails?

During the last days, a controversy surrounding Gmail , the e-mail platform of Google, has starred in all the headlines. Apparently, for some time, Third-party applications can access personal emails of the users, due to the permissions that the platform of the big G -by means of the users- grants them.

But is it something worrying? Several media have reported that, due to this supposed security breach -which should not be considered as such-, the developers could be reading the content of the emails of the users of their apps . Nevertheless,shed some light on the controversy, trying calm users worried about their privacy.

They may be reading your emails, but it’s not as serious as you think

You may be using a smartphone on your smartphone email manager that serves as a Gmail client , as,,or any of the thousands of existing tools of this type in Google Play. To be able to synchronize the e-mails you receive to your Google account, it is obvious that this application requires an integration with Gmail, through which you can synchronize, offer you push notifications every time a new message arrives, and course, show you the content of the emails that arrive in your inbox .

Therefore, in some way, the application in question will have access yes or yes to your emails . And the same applies to any other application, extension or program that requires the necessary permissions to be able to analyze the contents of your inbox or outbox in Gmail. The problem that has spread like gunpowder in recent days, comes from the fact that some third-party app developers have indicated that Sometimes emails are not analyzed by machines or specific programs, but for human beings responsible for collecting specific data.

So, Does this mean that your emails are not safe? No, not much less. In a publication on his official blog, Google points out that before the applications that integrate with Gmail see the light publicly, the company itself is responsible for investigating the developer or company, to discover that the information will be used legitimately, and finally give both the administrator and the user total transparency about how the data is used.

Therefore, in the event that Google identifies that the company is not legitimate, and therefore the data of users could be in danger, integration with Gmail is denied . In the opposite case, when it has been investigated that, indeed, the data will be analyzed only in search of relevant data for the company, and nothing else, access is granted, as long as the user – who after all is the one who has the last decision – grants the necessary permissions to the application, through the permission screen that will appear when you configure the app in question, and that you can see in the screenshot about these lines.

Definitely, Yes, it is possible that some of the applications that you have installed on your mobile or an extension of your browser are analyzing Gmail emails that you send or that arrive in your inbox, and there may be a team of human beings behind reading the messages in search of information that may be useful to carry out their work as a company. But do not forget that before you can do it, you have had to go through an investigation by Google to ensure that your data will be kept private at all times , and they will never be in danger of being exposed. And if this does not convince you, remember that you can withdraw the application’s access to your Gmail account at any time , in the same way that you granted it at first.